Bills and Baddies
by Purple-Muse
Summary: The Joker visits the post office to pays his bills. Wait...the Joker pays bills? Short oneshot story.


Baddies and Bills

It often surprised folks that Gotham city's most notorious criminal, the man who made even the strongest of people quake in their boots, who was aptly referred to as the Clown prince of Crime, paid his bills on time. But like any other American citizen, the Joker needed his gas and electricity. So, ok, he didn't use the sources the way normal people did, preferring instead to use his electricity to charge up his joy buzzers, and it was so much fun using the gas to blow his hideout up every time he had to 'abandon ship'.

The problem with a criminal paying bills was that he was never always there to collect them. A month ago he had gone out to kill some imbecile who, in a drunken conversation at the Iceberg Lounge, claimed he was the spitting image of Charlie Chaplin. Really! How did that guy even have the gall to vocalize the name of one of Britain's best comedy actors? If that guy was Charlie Chaplin, then he was Heath Ledger. Anyway, he had gone out, killed the guy, brought a happy meal, found a penny, replaced all the pies at the bakery with his acidic custard pies, pushed a lady in front of a bus, stole the money from a blind tramp's hat, leaving bottle caps instead, crashed a kid's birthday party, terrified a coulrophobic into committing suicide merely by standing next to him, and was finally incarcerated by Batsy while attempting to stab a guy dressed as Mr. Blobby.

He had done all that forgetting that he had left the lights on at home. By the time he had escaped from Arkham two weeks later, his bills had exceeded three hundred dollars! Including gas, electric, an order from Prank magazine, window cleaning, and several unpaid eBay bills. That was really an addictive site! The Joker was attempting to sell some of his merchandise there. Though he couldn't understand why he hadn't been getting any offers. I mean, who wouldn't want the chance to get his or her hands on the crowbar he had used to kill the Boy Blunder? So it had been used in a vicious murder, and had some splats of dried blood on it, that just added to its value right?

In fact, the best offers he had ever got was when he had tried to sell Harley. His highest offer was thirty dollars, and then those stupid eBay administrators had taken the ad down, saying that it was against the rules to sell a person on there! Honestly! Didn't those people know anything? Harley was more of a mouse than a person, the way she squeaked on all the time.

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**HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH**

The queue at the post office was incredibly long for that time of day. Did everyone in this stupid city wait until today to pay their bills? He tapped the woman in front of him to ask, only to find that the clutching of her chest and gasps for air weren't much of an answer. It was always the same. Whenever he wanted to know something, the other person would choose the time to die on him. The Joker found it very rude and annoying.

The Joker calmly stepped over the woman's body, ignoring the mob of people crowding around the woman, trying to revive her. He was delighted to see that the next person in front of him was his good friend Harvey Dent, AKA Two-Face.

"Hey, Double Features!" The Joker exclaimed throwing his arm around the fellow criminal's shoulders, "is this the queue for the post office?"

Two-Face looked at the clown distastefully before removing the Joker's hand from its current position. "No, this is the queue to the Adam West convention."

"Adam West! Man, I love that guy! He's the best!" The Ace of Knaves threw his hands in the air, and began skipping around. "Such stardom! Such quality! Wouldn't you agree, Twofers?"

Harvey merely growled, and began endlessly flipping his precious coin.

"Er, Harv?" The Joker had a look of confusion on his usually leering face, a striking contrast to what most people were accustomed to.

"What?"

"……………Who's Adam West?"

Two-Face mentally counted to ten – twice- and then flipped his scarred coin.

_Good heads, I tell him. Bad heads, I snap his pasty white neck instead._

He caught the coin in midair, slapping it on the back of his hand.

Good heads.

Damn.

He sighed in annoyance and turned to the Joker, "Adam West is an American actor."

"Oh," the answer seemed to satisfy the Joker. "So what are _you_ doing at an Adam West convention?"

"This isn't an Adam West convention!" Two-Face snarled. "I was being sarcastic."

"Well don't. Everyone knows that being sarcastic is my forty"

"Forte."

"What?"

"It's forte, not forty."

"That's what I said: forty."

Two-Face shook his head, knowing that it was a waste of time arguing with the clown. The Joker could disagree about anything. He had once started a full blown riot at Arkham over whether smooth peanut butter was better than crunchy peanut butter. Two-Face couldn't care less about which one was better. The riot had resulted in the entire rogue gallery – minus the Joker who was thrown into solitary- ending up in the infirmary.

On the other hand the Arkham guards had it pretty hard as well, especially that fat one. Two-Face honestly thought that he was going to explode when he began puffing up like balloon and turning blue. But honestly, how were they supposed to know that Tubby was allergic to peanuts when they had poured the entire contents of the jar down his throat?

"Why are you at the post office?" Joker asked curiously. "Come to pay your bills as well have you? Let me guess, they gave you…………_two_ weeks notice?"

Two-face growled, itching to sock the Clown Prince right between the eyes. "No, I need a second class stamp."

"Excuse me sir," came a small voice from in front of them, "but is it Halloween already?"

The voice belonged to a boy of about four. He was clinging to his mother's hand and staring intently at the two men.

The Joker grinned manically, and put his face close to the boy's. "Yeah, Kid, its Halloween and here's your treat. He sprayed the boy with his flower. The kid began to cough and choke, and then came Joker's favorite part.

"Heeheeheehahahahahhahhohhoheehee," the boy began to laugh uncontrollably. His face stretched into a hideous grin, and he dropped to ground.

"Ollie?" His mother, who had been talking to an elderly couple, looked down at him. When she saw her son she screamed. But that scream was nothing compared to the ear-piercing shriek she gave when she spotted the Joker and Two-Face.

"ARRGGHHH, JOKER! ARRGGHHH, TWO-FACE!" She took off down the street, swing her arms like a monkey on high.

It was amazing how short the line became after that. In fact, by time everyone had finished running and screaming in all directions –some into the busy road- Two-Face and Joker were the only ones left.

"I wish I had thought of that before," Joker said as both he and Harvey entered the post office. "I wouldn't have had to waste time standing in that queue."

There were about a dozen people in the post office, and when they saw the two villains they fell flat on the ground, covering their heads.

Joker and Two-Face looked at each other. "Are we really that bad?" Two-Face whispered to the Joker who shrugged.

The Joker walked over to the desk and pressed a bell to gain some assistance. An old lady's head popped up, her eyes wide with terror. "C-C-Can I help you?" She stammered.

"I want to pay these bills," Joker stated, showing the lady the papers in his gloved hands.

"And I want a second class stamp," said Two-Face.

The old lady opened her mouth……..and then fainted.

"Well how do you like that?" The Joker asked, frowning. "I'll just leave these here shall I?" He put the bills on the desk and waited as Two-Face went to get a stamp.

The two villains then walked out the door and down the street. When they got to the corner, the Joker turned to Two-Face and said, "well Twofers this is where I love you and leave you, but if it's all the same to you we'll skip the loving part."

He saluted Two-Face and skipped away.

The Joker arrived back at his hideout at six pm. He would have gotten there a lot sooner if he hadn't stopped to release the lions from the Gotham zoo, blow up a toilet cubicle, set fire to woman's wig, steal a paralyzed man's wallet, and poison a kid's cotton candy.


End file.
